Unlocking Web3 Publishing on Ronin
How We Identify Breakout Titles ⚔️
Key Points
What makes a Web3 game stand out to the Sky Mavis Publishing Team? In this article, you’ll find out what kinds of teams and games we’re looking to work with.
Case Studies: Ragnarok: Monster World and Lumiterra are Web3 games that experienced enormous success after their migrations to Ronin. Find out why we took a chance on them – and how the Ronin Effect unlocked their big break.
The Web3 gaming landscape is competitive, and it takes a herculean effort to make it in our industry. Which teams are ready to ship relentlessly through fiery maelstroms and long, cold winters? Check out our four traits we look for in potential partners.
Ronin is the #1 gaming blockchain by DAU, and home to iconic titles from Axie Infinity to Ragnarok: Monster World. Our mission? To spread economic freedom to users of the internet – starting with gamers.
The Sky Mavis Publishing Team is the engine driving our movement forward. They forge alliances with game studios ready to scale and arm them with the firepower to unleash the Ronin Effect. Tech stacks purpose-built for Web3 gaming. Direct pipelines to the enormous Ronin community. Battle-tested experience and advice. These are a few of the unfair advantages our team can offer exceptional builders.
Over the last year, Ronin has grown from 20K DAU to over 2M. Looking ahead, we’re hungry to continue that expansion. We most recently welcomed seven new game studios to our movement through Ronin Forge – a program designed for deeper integration and scaling. In this article, we’ll share some of our thinking behind our strategy:
What Makes a Web3 Game Standout?
Quality: This is about more than top-notch art—it’s about crafting an experience that hooks players on multiple levels. Think characters that pull you in, a story that sticks, and mechanics that align incentives to reward players for their time and effort rather than endless grinding. Great games also tend to have an X factor that keeps players coming back for more. What’s yours?
Readiness: The game is more than a proven concept. It’s playable, or at least 3-6 months away from a global launch. The Ronin community gives every game a chance, and we’re looking for teams ready to seize that moment and leverage the Ronin Effect.
Playability: This is about fun. The game needs to be easy to pick up, and engaging enough to keep players around. Strong DAU and D1/D7/D30 retention metrics are good data-driven indicators of playability. Addictive gameplay, ample content-creation opportunities, and positive user feedback help here as well.
Ambition: The game is built for the long haul. The team is serious about scaling and evolving alongside Ronin zkEVM, with a clear strategy to bring in more players and carve out a big presence in the Web3 space.
Here’s an example of what we’re looking for:
Case Study 1 – Forgotten Runiverse
Forgotten Runiverse is a pixelated MMORPG that launched on Ethereum in 2021. By late 2023, they had built a passionate collector community, created a variety of NFT collections, and accumulated three years of experience in the Web3 trenches. They looked like a Web3 game about to take off, but had yet to reach masses of gamers. Everything changed after we connected with Founder Bearsnake at GDC in March of 2024.
In a few months, the game migrated to Ronin and kicked off closed and open beta tests. At the end of their most recent open beta test (OBT), Forgotten Runiverse was ranked the #1 Web3 RPG by active users. 967K active wallets. 1.4M hours of play time. 363K RON in NFT volume. The best part? They racked up these numbers in 13 days. The Ronin Effect brought more players, more transactions, and more possibilities to the Runiverse.
Case Study 2 – Lumiterra
Lumiterra is a free-to-play MMORPG that caught our team’s eye on X/Twitter before its global launch. The game was making waves with players in China and Hong Kong, processing over 500K USD in transactions despite being an early build. The art was quirky, nostalgic, and fun. D7 Retention was around 80%. The team had even built their own blockchain wallet in-house! These were good signs of quality, readiness, playability, and ambition. As a result, our team reached out to Lumiterra founder, Lark on Twitter to discuss a migration to Ronin.
By August 2024, game studio Ticker Logic announced Lumiterra’s first Closed Beta Test on Ronin – and the results speak for themselves. Over a period of 3 weeks, Lumiterra NFT transaction volume surpassed 800K RON and D7 Retention held strong at 80%. Total transactions ballooned past 14M as legions of new players discovered the game. The Ronin Effect brought more players, more transactions, and more possibilities to Lumiterra.
Case Study 3 – Ragnarok: Monster World
Ragnarok is more than an iconic gaming IP – it’s a billion-dollar transmedia universe that defined the MMORPG genre for a generation of gamers in Southeast Asia. It’s also a beloved franchise among many Ronin gamers. In 2023, game studio Zero X And had acquired IP licensing rights, built an MPV, and laid out an ambitious roadmap to bring Ragnarok on-chain for the first time. However, they were missing a distribution strategy. Our team saw an opportunity for a win-win, and we met at Korea’s G-Star game exhibition to explore a partnership.
By May of 2024, Ragnarok: Monster World launched three NFT collections on Ronin. By August, they hosted a Closed Beta Test (CBT). So far, so good: Ragnarok NFTs have since done over 1M RON in volume, which amounts to almost $2M USD at time of writing. The week-long CBT also boasted a combined 23,416 hours of playtime on the first day, and an average of 2 hours and 50 minutes per player by Day 7. These are real gamers logging real play time – the Ronin Effect strikes again as Ragnarok enters the Web3 chat.
The Current State of Web3 Gaming
The Web3 gaming landscape is competitive and dynamic. For example, Pixels pioneered the first major Play-to-Airdrop campaign which culminated in the $PIXEL token listing on Binance at a $2B valuation. That was a watershed victory for Web3 gaming, and inspired countless projects to aim for the same target. However, market conditions have changed and exchanges have taken a more rigorous stance towards token listings. The playbook updates fast, and teams have to adapt.
Teams Forged in Fire
It takes a herculean effort to stand out in our industry. Which teams are ready to ship relentlessly through fiery maelstroms and long, cold winters? We’ve found that the following traits serve as a good foundation for teams ready to reach the next level of their growth:
Proven Traction: Developers should have racked up at least a few wins in Web3 gaming, and understand the intricacies of Web3 incentive design. We can help with global distribution, and give your game a better chance to reach massive scale.
Relentlessness: Teams should be willing to ship regardless of market conditions. They should be eager to push boundaries, challenge norms, and introduce fresh perspectives to Web3 gaming. This is a key trait that defined Axie Infinity’s success. It’s also what separates games that endure, and those that fade away.
Striving for Greatness: Game studios should be dedicated to creating high-quality experiences and refining their craft. Great art. Great game loops. Great community engagement. There are many paths to glory, and they all start with a full-bodied commitment to greatness.
Community-First, Value Alignment: Founders should understand the importance of community management. Web3 is not Web2. Blockchain gaming empowers players through digital ownership, and with this empowerment comes new responsibilities. How will a team guide their community through their journey, and how will they anticipate their unique needs?
Final Thoughts
Identifying breakout Web3 games involves more than trendspotting—it’s about discerning what sets a great game apart from the pack. Quality. Readiness. Playability. Ambition. These are the north stars that guide the Sky Mavis Publishing Team towards potential studio partners.
Join us on this exciting journey and let’s redefine the boundaries of gaming together.